


nobody else (is as easy to find)

by blackorchids



Category: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Airplanes, Far Future, Fluff, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Growing Up, Hopeful Ending, Implied Past Relationship(s), Meet-Cute, Mentioned/Implied Anxiety Disorder, Past Relationship(s), Reminiscing, Reunions, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, implied ot3, no love triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21803938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: Sloan runs into Cameron on a shared flight back to Chicago. It's still the easiest thing ever.
Relationships: Ferris Bueller/Cameron Frye/Sloane Peterson
Comments: 13
Kudos: 103
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	nobody else (is as easy to find)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pollyrepeat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollyrepeat/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Pollyrepeat!! I know it's not _quiiiiite_ the reunion fic you were probably expecting, but when I read your comment about them running into each other by total accident, I couldn't resist!! No nametags, just a plane full of people who probably want Sloan and Cameron to shaddup, lol
> 
> title from the song _Friends & Lovers_, by Carl Anderson

The heels she’s wearing are pinching Sloan’s feet before she even makes the entire way down the path in front of her building, but looking fabulous at the airport is a habit she’s serious about keeping, so she runs her tongue across her teeth for a second and takes a steadying breath, deciding firmly to simply _push_ the pain from her mind. It mostly works.

The sleek black car idling on the street in front of her displays a warped version of her reflection, and it’s second nature by now to allow the capped driver to open her door and put her luggage in the trunk on his own while she settles into the back seat, her huge Guess bag sitting on her lap so she can dig through it, looking for both her Nokia and her slender dayplanner, which has a crisp airline ticket tucked amongst the pages.

Pulling the phone from the depths of her overstuffed purse, she absently dials the same phone number she’s grown up knowing, listening to her parents’ home phone ring and ring before her dad finally picks up.

“Sloan, baby,” He says, pleased. “Are you about to leave?”

“Yes, daddy,” she tells him, smiling already at the standard amount of surprise he’ll display when she reminds him she’s using a mobile. “I’m on my way to JFK and I should be landed by dinner.”

Her dad _does_ marvel over it, double-checking that she’s really in a car and still able to call him, getting excited when she goes through a tunnel and the connection only gets a little fuzzy. She listens to him talk about her mother’s garden and how excited they both are to have her home for the weekend, and finally wraps up the call after he promises to be waiting at the gate for her.

Just before he can click off though, she stops him. “And happy birthday, daddy,” she tells him, and lets his deep laughter wash over her, more soothing than any spa day could ever manage. “See you soon.”

“See you in a minute, pumpkin,” He agrees, cheerful. “Love you.”

The last few minutes in her cab allow her to watch the city come into view, hustling and bustling with the excitement of the summer. Patriotic memorabilia is stuck up on every surface, it seems, and sales and parties are being advertised left and right, mattress stores and bars alike both guaranteeing _the best fourth ever_.

Sloan loves New York, loves the people and the environment and her job and her apartment with the kind of ferocity that burns a constant warm glow in her chest, but she can’t imagine spending the fourth anywhere but in Chicago.

Checking her bag and getting through security is a breeze, and Sloan has more than enough time to buy a too-dry muffin and a too-moist sandwich from a little shop, sitting near a huge window and watching the planes take off and land as she eats, the magazine she’d bought laying abandoned on the seat next to her. 

She’s so distracted that she almost misses it when the overhead starts calling boarding numbers, and she rushes through the gate, apologizing to everyone she bumps as she brushes past them. The tunnel to the plane is not air-conditioned, and by the time she makes it to the entrance of the plane, she’s already sweating a little, but she’s still feeling good enough to flirt a little with the pilot and the stewardess both before she passes through to the first class seating area.

She’s forced to wait while a tall, well-built man shoves an overstuffed backpack into the overhead compartment and finds herself idly appreciating the firmness of his shoulders that she can see, even under his Blackhawks jersey. And then he turns around to settle into his seat, and she couldn’t move an inch further if she tried.

“Cameron?” She asks before she can even think about it, and his chin snaps up before it drops in perfect surprise. He looks older, has grown into his height and his ears, and his haircut is much trendier than it used to be, but he is undoubtedly the same Cameron Frye she grew up with alongside—

“Sloan Peterson,” he says, and his voice is even deeper, but he’s quicker to smile than she’s ever known him to be, and when she inches closer, he holds his arms out just enough that Sloan has no compunctions about more or less throwing herself into them, hugging him tight.

Several disgruntled passengers hurry through while she’s still pressed up against him in the seating bay, and Sloan doesn’t even care, too stunned and thrilled and _overwhelmed_ to do anything but half-heartedly step back a handful of inches. Her seat is two behind his, still firmly in first class, and she can tell the blonde woman who was meant to sit next to Cameron isn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of switching, but she does it anyway, giving Cameron’s profile a rueful look as she goes.

“What were you doing in New York?” she asks him, but he doesn’t answer, is focused entirely on the stewardess’ safety demonstration. He is the only one that Sloan can see who has taken out the laminated pamphlet of safety information, and he’s following along closely, clearly cross-referencing the little annotations in the booklet with what’s going on in front.

A familiar rush of affection builds in her belly and hurries up her spine as she watches him secure his seat belt and tighten the strap and double and triple check that it’s fastened correctly. When he’s done with that, he rests his palms one on each denim-clad knee and takes several steady, deep breaths. Sloan bets he’s counting in his head.

Finally, Cameron opens his eyes and smiles a little wryly at her attention, but she’s suddenly filled with the unbidden thought that she has missed him dearly, just as much as she sometimes misses Ferris.

“I actually attended two lectures at NYU Grossman,” he tells her, finally answering her question like no time has passed. Then he shifts and twists a little to pull his wallet from his pocket and, before he opens it up, retightens his seat belt.

From the wallet he pulls a Loyola Medicine ID from it and shows it to her, raising her eyebrows when she gracefully deigns to keep her laughter inside.

“It’s okay,” he says grandly. “I know it’s just about the worst picture that has ever been taken of anyone.”

“No worse than any other ID picture,” Sloan says loyally, and Cameron winks at her, pleased as punch.

They sit in silence when the plane starts to move, Cameron with his hands back on his knees and his eyes closed and Sloan watching his long fingers tap out a steady thrum as the plane goes faster and faster on the tarmac. They still momentarily when it lurches into the air, and it’s a few long minutes later that Cameron rejoins her, sliding down the shade on his window so he can’t see how high up they are.

“I can’t believe you’re a doctor,” Sloan says, instead of anything else. “It doesn’t bother you?”

He grins, because he knows what she’s referring to. “I couldn’t have picked a place more preoccupied with sterilization,” he tells her, voice low like he’s sharing a secret. “It’s a dream.”

Sloan flips her hair over her shoulder, feels a long-forgotten rush when she sees him follow the movement with his gaze, the way he always had. The joke was always that dating Ferris was almost synonymous with dating Cameron, not that anyone ever realized how true that sentiment was.

It’s a few more minutes of idle conversation before the stewardess tells them they are free to move in the cabin, and Sloan takes the opportunity to duck lower, sliding her bag a little further out from under the seat in front of her and pulling from it her sketchbook, her unread magazine, and a bottle of mixed berry juice that she offers to Cameron.

“We can share it,” he tells her, and they each order two fingers of vodka from the stewardess, mixing Sloan’s juice into their cups and tasting their concoction.

Sloan hums a little thoughtfully, and Cameron smacks his lips a few times, and then he seems to notice her magazine sitting crooked on her tray. He straightens it out by rote before blinking at the title.

“Do you know it, then?” She asks him when he doesn’t say anything about it, and he lets out a little whuff of a laugh.

“Ferris writes for _Blue_ ,” he tells her, and it’s her turn for her mouth to fall open in surprise.

“I had no idea!” She exclaims, laughing as well. “I rather liked the cover!”

Cameron taps on the cover-story, _Ten Best Places To Paddle_ , and gives her a meaningful look. She almost doesn’t believe him, except, to be fair, if any of her old friends were going to become a world traveller who writes for a popular adventurer magazine, well—

—she’d be hard-pressed to find someone more suited for the job.

Sloan meets his gaze and then they both look down towards the magazine, perfectly lined up with the corner and two sides of her tray. “Do you wanna—” She starts to ask, and his mouth curls up, approval clear.

Sloan flips it open to Ferris’ _three page_ article and, together, they each take one side of the magazine and lean over it, heads touching as they read together, voices soft as they share particularly good lines or make comments. Sloan touches the tiny _written by: F. Bueller_ with the tip of her littlest finger, takes in the collage of gorgeous photographs, can practically hear Ferris’ voice saying these words aloud, jumping between the contents of the article and a dozen other fantastic stories that had happened to him on his travels.

She and Cameron flip through the rest of the magazine, giggling when they find a collection of author profiles on the last page. Cameron reads Ferris’ bland little bio in a very good announcer voice, and they grin at each other about the big cheesy grin on the tiny black and white picture of Ferris’ face.

The ice well and truly broken and Sloan’s magazine thoroughly read and discussed, she and Cameron spend the last forty minutes of the flight catching each other up on the past ten or so years since Sloan’s sophomore year in college.

The three of them had done an okay job staying friends even after Sloan and Ferris broke up directly after she graduated high school, but keeping in touch was never easy when two of them lived in different cities and the third was _apparently _gallivanting around the world.__

__Cameron talks about how he and his ex-girlfriend Natalie both stood each other up at their wedding, and Sloan inhales her drink when she thinks about that for too long, trying desperately not to laugh despite Cameron’s patient expression telling her that it’s more than fine and even expected. Sloan tells him about her divorce in two succinct sentences and then waxes poetic about her job at Ralph Lauren, explains to him what the difference between summer and autumn florals is, complains briefly about her boss before admitting that the woman was a genius._ _

__“So, you’re visiting for your dad’s birthday, right?” Cameron asks her when the captain announces that they will be landing shortly. They both give the stewardess their empty cups and raise their trays in preparation. As soon as they start to descend, Cameron’s hands fly back to rest firmly on his knees, but he keeps his eyes open, attention fully on her._ _

__“Yes,” Sloan confirms, a little lightheaded that he’s remembered. “My dad’s 60th, and for the fourth, which I fully believe is a _thousand_ times better-celebrated in Chicago than anywhere else, including New York, as great as it is.”_ _

__Cameron’s still watching her, and they’re still hurtling towards the earth, so she keeps talking, mentioning that it’s been _years_ since she’s had a real, genuine Chicago-Style hotdog, talks about getting ice-pops from street vendors and illicit fireworks that every single family shoots off after the sun goes down, putting on far better lightshows than any of the parks ever managed. She warms to the topic, has missed Chicago’s Fourth of July celebrations, talks about her parents a little in between._ _

__They touch down and Cameron breathes out, and she lets him tap each of his fingertips to their respective knee, waits until he’s let go of most of the tension in his sturdy-looking shoulders before she slowly lets her voice putter to a stop._ _

__Cameron shoulders his backpack and follows her off the plane, settling a guiding hand at the small of her back as soon as he’s able. When they and the rest of the passengers spill into the gate, she spots her dad almost immediately and points him out to Cameron. They watch him for a moment while he enthusiastically regals some strangers with whatever story he’s sharing, and then Sloan presses in close, hugging Cameron tight._ _

__“You should get dinner with me and Ferris when he gets here,” he tells her when they finally, finally separate. His eyes slide away from her face to something behind her and she’s certain her dad is coming closer._ _

__“Of course,” she agrees, earnest, pushing her fingers into the side pocket of her bag and extracting a pen. “Let me—” At her hand gesture, he obligingly spins around so she can use his back as a surface._ _

__On the cover of _Blue_ , she writes the number to her mobile, signs with a little heart and an _S_ , like they’re all still teenagers. “My parents’ number is the same,” she tells him, folding the ripped sheet in half and then quarters. She’s about to prompt him when he recites the whole thing by memory, and Sloan can’t help but smile, endlessly fond._ _

__“See you soon, Sloan,” Cameron says, nodding at her father politely and pressing a hasty kiss high up on her cheek. As he walks away, he tucks her number into the front pocket of his bag, zips it securely and double checks that it’s all the way shut. Before he turns the corner, he turns back to wave at her._ _

__“Hi, daddy,” Sloan says when he's gone, spinning to hug her dad tight and feeling happy enough to float. “I’ve missed you!”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked this one!! talk to me about the OG ot3


End file.
